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At outset this seems good... a cleric can backstab more easily than a rogue (staff)[edit mage] and you get the cleric casting plus the locks etc.. You could go rogue 13/cleric X? seems sweet! Clerics also have poor kits it seems.

It is a good dual, but the other thief to whatever duals or whatever to thief duals just seem to be a bit better - fighters get more attacks per round, mages get robes that don't screw with thief skills. And of course you get stuck with Cleric HLAs meaning you can't get Cheese any Item or the myriad awesome Fighter HLAs. And of course besides opening locks and picking pockets a Cleric can already do most of what a Thief does anyway with spells.
If there was more of an overlap between thief and cleric weapons and armor it'd probably be more popular, as it is a multiclass is the way to go if that's your fancy.

Some good points but which party would you like?

A thief/mage
cleric

B cleric/thief
sorceror


Theres definitely other possibilities, but I think rogue and cleric are not my favorite so maybe knock em out with one character and take a bunch of monks, berserkers, bards, sorcerors and specialist wizards in the other slots.. Druids etc..

Cleric/Thief may look good on paper due to the humongous backstab potential, but from personal experience, I want to let you know that they are pretty difficult to play. Primarily because their THAC0 is atrocious and their spells only help so much - if you're looking for an offensive caster, tank or support, there is no substitute for a single classes mage (or sorcerer) or one dualed/multiclassed to something else.

The cleric/thief really brings nothing to the table except for the huge burst... the one and only solace is that through the thief's Use Any Item he can gain access to mage scrolls and thus achieve the full combo, or better yet, have the Simulacrum from Vhalior's Helm do it for him.

Wouldn't they be much better than Viconia at least?

First of all, Viconia is a good character once you consider that stats are easily enhanced by items and note her high magic resistance.

Now, interestingly enough, the cleric/thief's base THAC0 is worse than that of a single class thief and a single class cleric. Why does that matter? It makes for a tedious early game. Yes you can still backstab with staves (which are great weapons), but even given the fact that you can equip your normal arsenal of weapons after acquiring UAI, well, you don't really have the THAC0 to do so without proficiencies.

Personally, when I play I never use a cleric for healing - I use them as a front line fighter. Same goes for a thief, I never use them to open locks or find/disarm traps (unless my character is the thief), I use them as backstabbers and a tactical asset. MOST traps can be ignored and all chests that can be picked can be opened through the Knock spell at the cost of experience (which isn't that hard to come by).

Claudius wrote:Wouldn't they be much better than Viconia at least?

You mean a Str belt / gloves wearing, 19 dex, 65 magic resistance Viconia? No.

Cleric/Thief isn't a good idea.
Thief(Swash)/Cleric isn't bad.

With ToB the cleric/thief multiclass is more powerful than dual thief>cleric because he gets access both HLA pools. Thac0 should be fine because you can cast a DUHM spell to boost str from 18 up to 24 (or even from 19 to 25), in combination with the +4 backstab and other bonuses you should be able to hit your backstabs with 95 percent accuracy and do lots of damage.

When choosing thief13/cleric (still better than Viconia) dual I recommend taking a kit. As assasin or bounty hunter you get enough skill points (level 18+ cleric DUHM raises dex by 6 and most skills by 30) and extra bonuses.
With the SoA XP cap (and for party players who want high cleric levels during the game and not when the game is over) it's not worth taking more than 11 thief levels, raising backstab*4 (which hardly anything survives) to backstab*5 isn't worth 2 cleric levels.

Can you backstab with a club? What about A club in main hand and Crom Faeyr in offhand? for a multiclass?

You can backstab with a club. Dualwielding with CF should work quite well, but as half-orc C/T with 19 str you don't even need the str bonus from CF, you can get 25 str just by casting DUHM. The problem with dualwielding is that you have to get close, quarterstaffs have longer reach and allow to switch to ranged weapon more easily for falling behind your tanks in normal non-backstab combat.

Thieves can backstab with clubs. Yes, you can backstab with a weapon while holding Crom Fayer in the off hand, however, it won't improve your THAC0 by that much (assuming you have high strength already) and it will still be low. And by low, I mean that it was at around -2, with no buffs, at full level, dual wielding Dagger of the Star +5 and the Crom Fayer. You're actually better off using the Staff of the Ram +6 as it gives you +3 THAC0 more.

While wielding the Staff of the Ram and buffing yourself using cleric only spells AND still maintaining the ability to cast he will have around -11 THAC0, or -5/-3 (with Montolio's Cloak) when dual wielding +5 weapons.

By using Champion's Strength and sacrificing the ability to cast, the numbers become -16 and -10/-8, respectively, which is pretty decent.

Using Tenser's Transformation will increase your health and AC values, but will decrease your THAC0 by about 4.

Wouldn't Crom Faeyr raise a thief/cleric str from 17/18 to 25 which would raise thaco by 7-1-2 = 4 so even if you only have a +3 club vs +6 staff you would still come ahead by 3+4-6 = 1

A 17 str cleric/thief without CF would definitely have strength raised with items or spells and therefore get a bigger strength bonus to thac0 than +1.
But this thac0 comparison is pointless, lowering thac0 already good enough to hit with all rolls except critical misses won't change your chance to hit at all.
Let's do some calculation for cleric/thief dualwielding CF and club+3, 1 point in dualwielding. The unbuffed thac0 is

(base thac0 for cleric 22, dualwielding penalty, strength bonus, club+3, stealth bonus)

6 + 2 - 7 - 3 - 4 = -6, so you'll hit monsters with -8 AC or higher perfectly even if you don't use buff spells or wear equipment to improve thac0, even far worse thac0 would be sufficient to backstab your targets with perfect success chance.

Nice analysis

If you were just grabbing some clerics spells for utility of the party, what level would you stop cleric and switch to rogue?

Or do you think it would be better to start rogue and then cleric?

I'll probably go multi anyways but its interesting to think of the possibilities.

Cleric9/thief is a nice option. You get the the most hitpoints this way, can cast PfE 10' radius and bring dead party members back to live.
Cleric15/thief39,16/38,17/37,19/35 or 22/32 are of course more powerful at the ToB XPCap, multiclass is best because of the HLAs.

Well, how about this for a show of the potential power of, albeit not "common" rogue, but an assassin-cleric dual, 1064 damage in one hit:

http://people.umass.edu/klement/1024.jpg

Screenshot is not mine, it's something a poster named Frabjous (old bioware forums), I believe, achieved.

More info on what went into it here (can't find the original post/thread): Choose Language | BioWare Social Network

I've just defeated Abazigal with a cleric/thief. It's a good build, but not the best out there. Nice to check out on your umpteenth playthough. If you're consistent and good about micromanaging and can remember about all those buffs, it's a very good character indeed.

Not as great a backstabber as others, but still capable. Half-orc, the most sensible race to choose here, has good starting stats so buffs have something to go on. The fact that it can get both cleric and thief HLA's is definitely an advantage, as is the +1 STR from the Holy Symbol which stacks with buffs and items. THAC0 can be further boosted by, for example, bard song, and later improved bard song - makes a nice difference.
Plus, you can wear amulet of power, or even the robe of Vecna with UAI and quickly cast Heal in a tight spot. Saved my life a few times.

from a pure game mechanics side, the half orc t/c multi sounds interesting.

having a main that can raise dead is pretty handy fundamentally the 3 main goals in any bg2 combat are: 1 keep the main pc alive, 2 keep the clerics alive 3. winning the fight.

if the main is a cleric, that gives you (up to) 5 expendable npcs.

likewise, thief options are pretty thin, being able to cover backstabbing, find / remove / set traps, locks, even dispel illusions is pretty solid.

still single weapon style backstabs are limited to clubs and the staff mace, backstabs limited to staves & clubs, missile weapons are sling and the dwarven thrower (post UAI).

not the most extensive weapons list.

quick question though - when you gain UAI can you then learn sword skills?

Staffs are decent backstabbing. Good staffs are available and two hand mastery gives +1 damage +5% critical.

I am satisfied with this character as rogue is my favorite and I have never used a cleric very much so its new. Just leveled to rogue 5 and have the boots/armor of stealth with 80/85 stealth so I should be a terror coming up.



edit

"quick question though - when you gain UAI can you then learn sword skills?"

I'm interested in that to koz-ivan